“The Vicious Circle” is early Hammett; it was his sixth published short story (if you count the two short shorts “The Parthian Shot” and “Immortality”) and only his second in Black Mask (the June 15, 1923 issue). It also was among the eight stories he signed under the penname Peter Collinson. The Black Mask editor wrote that “The Vicious Circle” was “one of the best stories we’ve run for a long time — with the regular Black Mask touch — and a plot you won’t fathom until the last word.”

Black Mask must have been having a particularly poor run of stories at the time for “The Vicious Circle” to be among their best. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not entirely without merit — it has a nice set-up and is certainly a tough-minded story, but there’s not much excitement in the telling. My favorite thing about it is the setting — Washington, DC. Perhaps I can start an East Coast version of the Hammett Tour!

An unnamed Senator with presidential ambitions meets with a shady constituent to seek his help in dealing with a blackmailer who can ruin the Senator. He gets what he wants, but the moral of the story is “be careful what you wish for.”

Frederic Dannay was rather free with the blue pencil this time around, starting with the title. When he reprinted the story in the April 1951 issue of Ellery Queen (and later that year in Woman in the Dark) he changed the title to “The Man Who Stood in the Way.” It is
with this story that we see perhaps Dannay’s most audacious editing — he actually rewrites the opening paragraph, inserting his own description of the Senator. We also have another example of Dannay editing Hammett’s work for the sake of social sensitivity.

In documenting the original text, I’ve used the same format as my earlier posts — page number, line number, whether it is from the top or bottom of the page, and the text corrections, with Hammett’s original text that was deleted underlined. The page numbers refer to the 1951 first edition Woman in the Dark.

Page no.Line #Top/bottomText

120 title The Man Who Stood in the WayThe Vicious Circle

120 1 top The Senator kept biting his
lip, as if he were beset with problems of insurmountable difficulty. He The
Senator was a massive man, exuding an air of power.

120 4 top scarcely adequate for his
weightits task;

120 12 top under
the treadtrend of his heavy feet [this appears to be an
appropriate edit]

127 17 bottom “You sure-God hit him pretty;
[This also should be a separate paragraph]

127 15/16 bottom [The break between paragraphs should be
titled “IV”]

127 8 bottom hope and fear, eagerness and
reluctance.

127 7 bottom Inch nodded with cool assurance.

127 2 bottom with a sobbing intake of breath,
and the color began to flow back in his face.

128 2 top “Ain’t nothing can happen! Everything
is all right!”

I am deeply indebted to Mr. Clark Evans of the LOC’s Rare Book Room for arranging my access to these fragile pulps and for helping me to photograph them. In the coming weeks
I’ll be documenting the edits made to “Afraid of a Gun” and the Continental Op tale “Night Shots.”

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In 1977 Don Herron began leading The Dashiell Hammett Tour, now the longest-running literary tour in the nation. On this site you’ll find information on current walks — dates, where to meet, arranging tours by appointment — plus a hard-boiled blog with news, reviews of books and film, and a dash of noir.